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“You’re home now, right?”
“Yeah.” I lift my head and glance toward the television, switched off and streaked with dust after being untouched for months. “I’m home. I’m not going out again tonight. So these case notes… think of it like me and Fletch; we work our cases together, because we like it that way. Not everyone does. Not everyone should. Some cops are better on their own, and some need a partner to hold them accountable. Whatever the situation, most everyone is managed by their lieutenant. Just like me and Fletch, Mercer and Wright were tight. They worked together, they hung out together outside of work. They weren’t always part of a task force, same as Fletch and I aren’t always part of one.”
“But you are right now?”
“Right. When a case gets too big for one or two men to handle, the department assigns more. Fletch and I have seniority on this one, which means we’re in our warm homes tonight while uniforms are still on the street.”
“Sucks for them.” She releases a yawn, noisy and cathartic enough to almost tempt me to do the same. “So what else have you figured out?”
“Wright and Mercer have been on numerous teams over the last seven years. I made contact with Investigator Gaines, so we could chat informally.”
“And Investigator Gaines is…?”
“A cop with many years of experience, and for most of them, his eyes were squarely on my family.” The fact I can be so blasé about it all is… surreal. But it is what it is. “He doesn’t work directly with our vics, but they have similar goals, so their workload sometimes overlapped. He knew the detectives enough to recognize their names when I called him.”
“What did he say about them?”
I shrug, looking to my left, tempted to lie flat and stretch my legs. But the second I do, I worry I won’t get up again. “He said they were solid enough. Middle of the line, they kept their noses clean and did the work. Neither stood out for doing anything particularly wonderful, but similarly, they didn’t cause trouble either. They were simply grunts who turned up day after day and maintained a solid close rate. Gaines described Mercer as a tenacious boy scout. Tenacious, because he was dogged and kept digging, even if something seemed irrelevant.”
“And the boy scout comment?”
“He was considered a snitch by some. He went to the lieutenant more than a time or two to report things he felt weren’t up to scratch.”
More alert, Minka noisily sits up in bed. “Like what?”
“Like, one of his colleagues, Detective Lee, was reprimanded for what was concluded as police brutality. Lee arrested a homeless guy, tossed him around, roughed him up a bit. Mercer called him out on it, and Lee shrugged him off. Few days later, Lee was called in and slapped on the wrist for it.”
“Mercer told on him?”
“Made a report,” I clarify. “Another time, a cop he was working with allegedly, according to Mercer, violated the fourth amendment. Unlawfully searching a suspect’s property. He’d made no arrest, and therefore, had no right to do that search.”
“So Mercer snitched.”
“Right. Now, some of these infractions are a little…” I wrinkle my nose, “Gray area. Without coming across as a total fucking wanker, sometimes I get a little rough with someone who isn’t cooperating, too. I’ve asked questions, despite not making an arrest. I’ve done searches…”
“You’ve committed certain acts that might have landed you in front of your lieutenant had someone like Mercer seen.”
“Essentially. I don’t push the line too far, and Fletch doesn’t run off to Lieutenant Fabian if he feels my actions were unwarranted. The times he doesn’t agree with me, he calls me out and we deal with it between the two of us.”
“Like the Vigilante stuff,” she whispers. “Dealt with between partners.”
“Bingo. So it turns out Mercer had loose lips. Which isn’t a bad thing. He made a promise to his badge, and his partner and lieutenant were fond of him, so it sounds as though he knew where the line was.”
“Still… That might’ve created enemies.”
“Tension is typically dealt with via reassignment,” I explain. “Obviously, not everyone is gonna get along. Especially in our line of work. Psychologists suggest the personality types that go into police work verge toward egocentric narcissists.”
I know she smiles now, her lips curling wide and her cheeks warming. “No way, Detective. I don’t believe what you’ve just told me.”
I chuckle. “The point is, toss a bunch of egos into one room, and there’s bound to be clashes in personalities. But we have enough movement around Copeland that cops can be shuffled and shifts can be modified. In the end, a good captain will run his division at its optimum level, placing his players on the chessboard in such a way that ensures a win.”
“Nice analogy,” she drawls. “So, knowing all that, what new information do you have to aid in your investigation?”
“I have stacks and stacks of case notes, and a little notebook with pages filling up. I’m working out which cases Mercer and Wright ran, who their perps were, and which officers they worked with. Then I’m drawing a big ass Venn diagram and I’m gonna find names that overlap.”
“Do you think…” She hesitates, her silence a sword that pierces my belly, because I know what’s coming. I’d deserve to lose my badge if I hadn’t thought the same thing. “Is it possible your cop killer is another cop? I mean, maybe Mercer or Wright pissed him off. Maybe they got him reassigned somewhere he didn’t want to go. Or maybe he was fired for misconduct. It’s not a stretch to consider a cop would know where to get more powerful weapons, and they probably have the connections to find armor-piercing rounds. Perhaps the killer was considered our vic’s friend at some point, and it’s possible it wasn’t a rat calling them out at night, but a colleague they trusted.”
Nodding, I bring a hand up and pinch the bridge of my nose to release the ache sitting right between my eyes. “Fletch and I have tossed it back and forth. We’ve considered it.”
